Quinoa

I saw this cookbook on the sales table at my local bookstore and couldn't say no. Not because of the sale price, which I thought wasn't much of a sale price, but because I have cooked with quinoa before and not many, if any, of my cookbooks have recipes incorporating this grain. Cooking with Quinoa: The Supergrain by Rena Patten; New Holland Press is an interesting book on getting you informed and on your way with quinoa. What is quinoa? What does it look like? and Preparing quinoa? are brief but helpful segments at the front of the book. I don't know about you but it helped me realise that I was indeed pronouncing the word quinoa wrong. Quinoa is pronounced keen-wah. This cookbook comes with mega photos and recipes to one side of the page. Recipes range from Soup, Breads and Pasta, Salads, Vegetarian, Meat, Poultry, Seafood and Sweet Things. The recipes deal with quinoa in it's three forms: a grain, flour and flakes. Quinoa is very high in protein, gluten and wheat free and full of vitamins. A tiny grain with mega results.

I took it upon myself this Sunday to make the pancake recipe from this book. Hoping that the organic quinoa flour would go undetected. I have cooked and baked with soy and rice flour before and it went unnoticed. Quinoa flour is different... it is quite fragrant. Even though the recipe called for 1 cup quinoa flour I cut that in half and used a 1/2 cup of organic quinoa flour. My kitchen senses were right on the mark. I think if the full cup was used some might have been struggling to get over the taste. Nonetheless there are many more pages with recipes to try. Lots of salads, main dishes and of coarse chocolate cake! - jw